Abstract

The reign of al-Hakim bi-ʾAmr Allah (r. 996-1021) is often dismissed as a psychotic blip in the history of multiconfessional relations in the medieval Islamic world. Al-Hakim infamously embarked on a large-scale destruction of churches in his realm, including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. This article draws on a variety of sources to argue that rather than being reductively attributable to a personal psychological imbalance, al-Hakim’s dramatically negative treatment of churches signaled a general shift from an esoteric form of Ismaili Shiʿism to one more appealing to the broader Islamic umma.

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